Adaptation Strategies to Scenarios of Accelerated Global Change Impacts in the Mediterranean Coastal Zone (ECOLEARN)

  • Start date: 1/06/2020
  • Completion date: 31/05/2023
  • Financing institution: Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovacón y Universidades, Proyectos de I+D+i)

ECOLEARN builds on the knowledge gained by a previous research project (LiTOMED) in the Llobregat Delta of the metropolitan area of Barcelona. The aim of the present project is to contribute to global change knowledge and adaptation policy by providing a participatory and context-based planning proposal. The project responds to the need to collectively discuss and learn about the MEANS, and, more importantly, the ENDS to be pursued by adaptation policy in the context of accelerated climate change impacts.

Specific objectives:

  1. To understand practices of social-ecological and transformative learning for Global Change governance developed worldwide.
  2. To collectively build trans-scalar understanding of water conflicts (catchment, treatment and drainage) of the Llobregat river and delta as a social-ecological and transformative learning process.
  3. To co-produce knowledge with farmers on the processes and activities of the agrarian park and co-develop new productive models as a social-ecological and transformative learning process in the context of accelerated impacts.
  4. To co-identify alternatives to cope with existing and future morphodynamic/hydraulic impacts (i.e. erosion, flooding,..) in the seafront of the delta del Llobregat and co-analyze vulnerability transfers among stakeholders in their potential implementation.
  5. Collectively assess the potential of the Delta del Llobregat as a future “Laboratory Region”.

Toward Just, Ethical and Sustainable Arctic Economies, Environments and Societies (JUSTNORTH)

  • Start date: 1/06/2020
  • Completion date: 30/11/2023
  • Financing institution: EU Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, H2020-EU.3.5.1. – Fighting and adapting to climate change
  • Website: https://justnorth.eu/

JUSTNORTH is a European Project designed to explore the multitude of ethical systems that coexist in the Arctic, as a starting point to assess the viability of new economic activities in the region.  For the millions of people who live both inside and outside the Arctic and are affected by these economic activities, decisions are made through utilitarian ethical principles:  viability of an activity is based on profitability and technical feasibility, with little regard to questions of whether it is ethically right or wrong for the impacted human populations or the environment.

Global climate change has launched intense speculation on Arctic resources.  Increasing geopolitical tensions among some of the Arctic states increases the importance of respecting different value systems while finding common values to help strengthen the links between Arctic and non-Arctic entities.  Significant practice and policy gaps in existing Arctic economic activities have led to development that is unsustainable.   Through understanding current practices of development in the Arctic through the lens of 18 case studies, JUSTNORTH aims to develop conceptual frameworks, indices and a negotiation tool, for reconciling multiple ethics and value systems.  These will provide a cornerstone for determining the viability of economic activities in the Arctic, as well as clarify policy, legal, and regulatory pathways for implementing ethic-based decision-making principles.

UAB role

Interfase researchers are contributing to Work Package 3 on Justice in Scale and Distribution.

Efectes, capacitats i necessitats polítiques de resposta a el canvi climàtic a la costa mediterrània espanyola (LITOMED)

  • Start date: 01/01/2016
  • Completion date: 31/12/2019
  • Financing institution: Ministeri d’Economia i Competitivitat d’Espanya – Direcció General d’Investigació Científica i Tècnica

El projecte té como a objectiu principal investigar els efectes i la capacitat de resposta al fenomen del canvi climàtic d’influència marina al Delta del Llobregat. En aquest sentit, s’ha dut a terme un treball interdisciplinari de recerca participativa amb la coproducció del coneixement amb els actors del territori. D’aquesta manera s’ha implementat al projecte dividit en 4 etapes fonamentals:

  1. Establiment del marc conceptual de la governança del Canvi Climàtic d’influència marina (CCIM) al territori litoral.
  2. Anàlisi del marc jurídic-administratiu que regula la governança del CCIM al Delta del Llobregat.
  3. Anàlisi econòmic i social de les conseqüències del CCIM al Delta del Llobregat.
  4. Anàlisi de la capacitat de resposta institucional i de la societat civil als reptes generats pel CCIM.

Metodologia de treball

  • Anàlisi de les polítiques i plans locals d’adaptació al canvi climàtic.
  • Anàlisi de les polítiques de gestió territorial i sectorials.
  • Realització d’entrevistes amb els actors del territori (àrees protegides, infraestructures, àrea agrícola, aqüífer, etc.)
  • Realització tallers participatius sectorials i intersectorials amb els actors i líders del territori per avaluar escenaris i trade-offs.

European Topic Centre on Urban, Land and Soil Systems (ETC/ULS)

The ETC on Urban, Land and Soil Systems (ETC/ULS) is an international consortium working with the European Environment Agency under a framework partnership agreement for the period 2019-2021.

The ETC/ULS, supports the European Environment Agency (EEA) in supporting monitoring of urban development in Europe, creating seamless European wide spatial reference data and develop and analyse various land related indicators.

The ETC is embedded and part of the European Environmental Information and Observation Network (Eionet) and is cooperating with other European institutions like the Joint Research Centre (JRC), Eurostat, the different DGs of the European Commission and ESPON (European Spatial Planning Observation network).

People for Ecosystem Based Governance in Assessing Sustainable Development of Ocean and Coast (PEGASO)

  • Start date: 01/02/2010
  • Completion date: 21/01/2014
  • Financing institution: EU FP7 research and innovation programme (FP7-ENVIRONMENT)
  • Website: PEGASO research results on CORDIS

PEGASO developed common, novel approaches to support integrated policies for the coastal, marine and maritime realm of the Mediterranean and Black sea basins. It was a collaborative project between twenty-five partners that co-worked over four years under the lead coordination of Françoise Breton at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). The PEGASO final conference took place in Antalya (Turkey), from the 14th to 17th of January 2014 gathering a wide range of institutes and networks from the Mediterranean and Black Sea and representatives from Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) initiatives in other regional seas.

Coastal Governance and Adaptation Policies in the Mediterranean (COASTGAP)

The Mediterranean coastal zones are among the most threatened by Climate Change effects, also considering their environmental and infrastructural value and concomitant strains like erosion, salt water intrusion, littoralization, etc.. The project COASTGAP was born after more than 10 years of shared experiences in this field, among many Mediterranean coastal Administrations and Institutions, which established the cluster FACECOAST (www.facecoast.eu) in 2011. COASTGAP aimed to capitalize 12 best practices from 9 projects of the cluster (from MED and other programmes), to produce governance and adaptation policies aimed to reduce risk along coastal zones and foster their sustainable development (there were 15 institutions involved). In order to provide an operational and coherent strategy for the 2014-2020 financial period, supported by multi-level agreements among coastal Administrations, COASTGAP aimed to design, characterize and prepare to launch the Joint Action Plan on Adaptations to Climate Changes in MED Basin.

UAB role

To link the cluster FACECOAST and the PEGASO ICZM Platform. The UAB developed an operational network between MED coastal concerned Organizations. The ICZM platform of PEGASO project has been used for testing best Practices 1 (Environmental Impact Assessment Guidelines Capitalisation) and BP4 (Protocol on Integrated Coastal Zone Management in the Mediterranean- Art.8 Methodology Capitalisation) of the COASTGAP project.  The UAB has also linked coastal stakeholders from the region of Catalunya with the Best Practices capitalized in the COASTGAP project.

Innovative Ecosystem-Based Governance Strategies for Resilient Coasts (INN-COASTS)

  • Start date: 01/01/2013
  • Completion date: 31/12/2015
  • Financing institution: Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (Spanish Government). 

The INN-COASTS project proposes a very innovative ecosystem-based integrated coastal zone management (ICZM) conceptual framework and associated tools for decision making. It is analyzing the state and evolution of the Mediterranean Spanish coast, its ecosystems, urban settlements, protected and non protected areas, making assessments and providing guidance for coastal resilient planning and management, understood in this proposal as the capacity of being flexible adapting to social-environmental changes in a sustainable way.

Three Spanish coastal case studies have been chosen in order to carry out the project: 1) the South Metropolitan area of Barcelona (Llobregat Delta – Garraf coast) (Catalonia); 2) the Ebro Delta (Catalonia); and 3) the Eastern coast of Almería (Andalusia), to work in each of them together with managers and decision makers, in a participative governance, sharing concepts, visions, data and results and identifying drivers and potential responses in terms of ICZM, with the aim of bridging science and decision making.

The project proposes to build an inventory of the coastal and marine ecosystems in the pilot sites, with criteria to identify and mapping them through different methods and assess their state and trends, identifying degradation hotspots but also networks of healthy ecosystems that should be taken into account for improving the planning and management of the coast. Guidance for ecosystem-based management are being written having in mind the anthropic but also global (including climate) change pressures on these ecosystems and their future.

UAB role

The INTERFASE team from UAB is the lead partner and the main staff provider of the project and is coordinating

  • Activity 1: Ecosystem-based approach guidance for the ICZM in Spanish Mediterranean coasts, 
  • Activity 2: Development of a coastal ecosystem accounting methodology / blue green inventory for the Mediterranean Spanish coasts, 
  • Activity 3: Resilient coasts at the face of climate change adaptation: new challenges for urban adaptive planning and governances, 
  • Activity 4: Sustainable tourism in coastal areas: state of the art and challenges, 
  • Activity 5: ICZM governance platform in coastal areas and  
  • Activity 6: Project coordination and dissemination.

EAGLE – Harmonising European Land Monitoring

The EAGLE group (Eionet Action Group on Land monitoring in Europe) was set up in 2009 by members of EIONET NRCs on land cover as a response to the growing need to discuss solutions for a better integration and harmonization of national mapping activities with European land monitoring initiatives (i.e. CLC) at technical level, independently from any political or industry preferences, following the concept of a bottom-up approach.

The EAGLE concept …

  • can be a useful framework for the integration of LC / LU information from various data sets in one single data model.
  • is applicable on both national and EU level.
  • is a vehicle for comparison and semantic translation between different LC/LU nomenclatures, and facilitates data exchange.
  • is open to be implemented as a LC / LU data collection standard for national land monitoring initiatives.
  • can be a coherent common data framework for several single GMES products (CLC, HRLs, Urban Atlas).

European Topic Centre on Air Pollution and Climate Change Mitigation (ETC/ACM 2014-2018)

European Topic Centres (ETCs) are centres of thematic expertise contracted by the EEA to carry out specific tasks identified in the EEA Multiannual Work Programme and the annual work programmes.

During 2014-2018 the INTERFASE researchers contributed to the European Topic Centre on Air Pollution and Climate Change Mitigation. INTERFASE role focused on  improvement of the current noise database through its design and implementation to facilitate data reporting under the Environmental Noise Directive by the EEA member countries.

The European noise database produced has been used in assessments related to the noise situation at European, national and also sub-national level, and also related to sectoral and cross-cutting assessments (linking noise with health, transport, social deprivation, quiet areas and ecosystems assessments), in view of improving the policy process and evaluation.

European Topic Centre on Urban land and soil systems (ETC/ULS 2015-2018)

The European Topic Centre on Urban, Land and Soil systems, ETC/ULS, supports the European Environment Agency (EEA) in supporting the monitoring of urban development in Europe, creating European wide spatial reference data and developing and analysing various land related indicators.

UAB role

The UAB  contributed to the ETC/ULS during 2015-2018 in the following tasks:

  • The development of an Integrated Data Platform which enables the semantic inventory, handling and analysis of various spatial layers facilitating effective and efficient integrated spatial data analysis and provides a spatial assessment service to the different parts of the EEA’s work programme.
  • Development of a land recycling indicator. Development of the methodology and implementation.
  • Integrated analysis of urban systems, with special focus on urban sustainability.
  • Networking of urban monitoring. Given the specificities of urban systems, a joint collaborative initiative between the EEA, ETC and other European institutions/organizations and stakeholders intended to integrate different urban monitoring systems: Integrated Urban Monitoring initiative (IUME).
  • Supported reporting on the environment and tourism; developed of a set of indicators and a corresponding assessment.